


Eschatarch

by neuxue



Category: Daughter of Smoke and Bone - Laini Taylor
Genre: Brimstone/Warlord if you squint, Gen, a whole lot of pain, canon-level descriptions of death and violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 12:43:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17043956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neuxue/pseuds/neuxue
Summary: Once upon a time, two demons burned an empire to ash, that a world could be remade.





	Eschatarch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fairleigh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fairleigh/gifts).



_Once upon a time, two demons burned an empire to ash, that a world could be remade._

******  
   
Brimstone lit the last of his incense as he knelt beside the small Kirin form and began to say the prayers of passing. Pain burned with the stolen flame, across his back and shoulders where the whips had most recently fallen, but it seemed to ebb somewhat as the funereal smell of sulphur and smoke rose around him and the old, familiar words brought focus.  
   
Hardly more than a child, this time, but it was hardly the first time for that. He would need to steal more incense soon.  
   
Brimstone shook his head slightly, berating himself; this fallen child deserved his full attention. The movement set another wash of pain across his shoulders and he seized on it to sharpen his focus.  
   
And there, somewhere on the edges of the pain and the grief and the ever-present rage, he felt the brushing of a night sky full of stars, of wingbeats and gentle wind, of memory tangled in dreams and laced with yearning. For a moment it filled his mind, lingering in the air with the fragrance of incense and death, and then it was gone.  
   
He had felt its like before, each time different and yet somehow the same, but never so clearly, and this time he was certain he had just borne witness to the passing of a soul.  
   
******

Bruxis watched from an alcove along the side of the pit as the one called Brimstone knelt beside the body of a fallen child.

Priest, some called him. Mad, said others. But all spoke of him with similar tones of mingled wariness and respect, and Bruxis had been watching long enough to know most brought their dead to him, or him to their dead. He knew as well as any of them how grief could change one's perspective; even a madman's rites might be a comfort to one desperate at the loss of a brother, a sister, a child, a lover.

But that respect brought questions Bruxis could no longer afford to ignore. There was no privacy in the slave pits, but the reign of apathy and madness kept secrets better than discretion ever could. Yet as more and more joined him, as whispers of a Warlord spread, as once-isolated tribes began to learn the pidgin dialect that was becoming every day more of a common tongue, as a last desperate hope kindled behind eyes long blank, the risk of discovery grew. And with discovery, betrayal. 

Any who held a position of respect or even infamy, any who were known by name and sight, any with even a semblance of authority were dangerous. But they were also an opportunity. 

He had watched long enough to be sure Brimstone held influence, if quietly and strangely. Those yet to lose anyone they loved stepped cautiously around him, as if by staying away from the death-priest they could escape the notice of death itself. But sorrow came soon enough for all still able to feel it, and they sought him in quiet corners and moonlit nights, drawn by grief and incense like moths to a flame. There was power in death, and power in dominion over it, however illusory.

And so the question. Was it a ruse, to draw out those with spirit left to fight? For where there was grief, there would be anger. And where there was anger, there may be a spark that could be kindled to rebellion. Was he a spy, gathering names to betray to their masters, using death to ensure death? Or was it resistance?

He would not have been the first to serve the seraphim in such a way. Despair made treason meaningless to many; how could you betray those already damned? But Bruxis had learned ways of dealing with those who took such bargains. He left them alive when he could; he could not condemn them for turning to the angels for relief from the endless pain, any more than he could hate those who sought refuge in madness. 

Yet there was something else to this Brimstone, another question that could bring far greater danger than simple treason, or a far greater opportunity than leadership. He watched carefully this time, as he had the last three, trying to follow Brimstone's hands as he prepared and lit the incense, but just as with the previous times, he could not get a clear view. Yet fire was forbidden, as forbidden as weapons, save for the carefully guarded cookfires at the centre of each slave pit. He himself had tried to steal fire, and each time had brought pain beyond imagining. Even weapons were easier to steal than that.

So where did Brimstone come by flame?

******  
   
Brimstone tensed at the sound of footsteps approaching, but did not look up. Discovery meant torture and perhaps death, but then, so did life. There was a freedom in that, and a darker freedom in the fact that most who saw him were past caring, and others too afraid. The rest had sought him themselves at one time or another. He kept to himself and listened to their grief and spoke to no one, posed no threat. As for the guards, they simply wrinkled their noses when an errant breeze brought the funeral smoke to their notice, and sneered down at the beasts and their primitive ways.

So he forced himself to relax and finish the last words of the ritual before extinguishing the incense as the footsteps stopped behind him. He bowed his head, ignoring them.  
   
“Why?” a voice behind him finally asked. 

He had sworn to himself that he would not seek death unnecessarily — it was too tempting a relief, and who would watch over the dead once he was gone? Who would mark the passage of forgotten souls? He was the last of his kind, and he would endure as long as he could because it was all he could do. But there was true curiosity in that voice — a rare emotion in the pits — and a lie or even an evasion felt like sacrilege on his tongue, with the remnants of the child's departed soul still echoing in his mind like the memory of a dream.

And so he spoke truth. He would endure as long as he could, but it would mean nothing if he preserved his life by dishonouring the guardianship of death that gave it meaning.  
   
“It was the tradition amongst my people, or so I am told, and I am the last."

"Most here would say that does not matter. Why, then? Why hold on to a tradition none remain to recognise?"

"Because I can, and someone must, else we become nothing more than creatures of pain. Because some of us must remain this side of madness, to remember we are more than the beasts they try to make us. Because even those who do take that escape deserve the dignity in death they could not have in life.”  
   
“Then why not fight them? Why waste resistance on death when you could use it to preserve that life?”  
   
Brimstone finally looked up at what he heard in that voice. Not the anger; anger was commonplace, but determination — true determination, not simply the furious impetus of denial?  
   
He was surprised, briefly, to see the hartkind face scarred and bleeding, the posture that spoke all to eloquently of pain and weariness. He had expected, somehow, to see a general. Still, he recognised the man before him. Warlord, they called him in whispers, daring treason for the novelty of hope, and even battered and bleeding, Brimstone could almost see why.  
   
Something in that voice…and the flat iron in those eyes. Many had asked him why he still performed death-rituals, but they asked with the anger of despair seeking to stifle hope, that it may turn eventually to apathy instead. He had become accustomed to answering in his own hard-edged, long-kindled anger.  
   
This, though…this was not a question asked out of despair. This was a question that sought a companion in hope.  
   
“They call you Brimstone. Where do you get the incense?”  
   
Brimstone held his gaze and said nothing.  
   
“And to light it?”

There was a deeper question in those eyes that gave Brimstone pause. A spy? No. He had chosen trust, for someone had to begin. He would meet this Warlord's hope with his own, and honour the last passing of that hope-filled soul that still lingered in the air around him, waiting like a blessing.  
   
So Brimstone gathered pain, drawing it deeper into himself, letting its glittering edges flicker against that deep-held flame of anger inside him, always burning, carefully guarded yet ever demanding release. Its light sparked against the edges of pain and a small flame burst into life on one clawed fingertip. He looked up at the Hartkind warrior with just a hint of a challenge, and was rewarded by a flicker of something like surprise in those deep black eyes.

******

The world changed in a single flicker of fire without spark. 

"Magus," Bruxis breathed, not sure even himself if what flooded him was fear or hope, but certain it meant everything. He barely kept from glancing around in wonder, certain everyone in the pit must have felt the world shift on its axis, felt the sky itself gasp in wonder, felt the future quake in sudden possibility.

"Never," Brimstone said flatly, but there was anger in his voice now.

"Sorcerer, then. Call it what you will; you wield magic. How?"

"They are not the only ones who can use pain. Nitid knows they give us enough of it."

"They never suspected..." Bruxis breathed, astonished.

"Nor did we. They think us beasts, and sometimes I wonder how far they are from imposing that reality, as they have so many others."

"But with this..."

"With this what? Is this the part where you ask me to join you in fighting them?" Bruxis's eyes widened before he could wipe the surprise from his face, and Brimstone laughed mirthlessly. "You think I don't know who you are, _Warlord_? Recruiting anyone with enough of a mind left to follow and playing at teaching them to fight? And for what?"

"The same reason you preside over their deaths. Because someone has to. Because we are more than beasts."

"So you will let them make us monsters?"

The two stared at each other, anger and fear and hope and dreams hanging between them with the fading words, and for a moment neither moved. Then Brimstone spun and walked away, quickly fading to no more than a graceful darkness silhouetted by Ellai's light. Bruxis held himself perfectly still long after Brimstone vanished, resisting the inexplicable urge to call out, or to follow.

******

Brimstone had not realised he had memorised the sound of Bruxis's footsteps until he knew without a doubt who approached him as once more he knelt beside a corpse, shrouded in incense and the last remains of a fading consciousness. He did not rise, did not turn. But nor did he walk away. It was time for truth between them.

"Yes," Bruxis said at last into the silence, and Brimstone did not have to ask what question he was answering. "If monstrosity will save us, then let us be monsters."

"Monsters who dream of peace," Brimstone said, trying the words and pushing away a deep sadness. It was time to let go of denial; war demanded sacrifice, and they had nothing left to give but themselves. 

"They chose monstrosity the moment they picked up the lash," Bruxis said, offering the brutal truth as a gentle consolation, a gesture of understanding, a reconciliation between them. And from him somehow the words were not jarring. It was, Brimstone thought not for the first time, why the others found him so easy to follow. He did not demand, but there was a commanding presence to him that compelled loyalty. He did not shout or rage or cry harsh speeches of blood and fire, but in his quiet words there was truth and passion. His every word and motion spoke of contained violence, held gently. A paradox: one who could inspire both the desire to destroy and the will to rebuild.

"And they chose their battleground when their magi claimed magic for themselves alone," Brimstone said, rising and stepping forward, his motions mirroring his words, meeting Bruxis where he stood, accepting his offer and joining their dreams.

Bruxis held out a hand, and Brimstone took it, and as he drew back there was a small stick of incense in his palm. Brimstone met his eyes then, and nodded.

"The battleground, then," Bruxis said, and his voice was that of a general now, brisk command and practicality, a Warlord planning his strategy, no longer a lost soldier seeking an ally. "Where else but here? There cannot be peace while Astrae stands."

Brimstone heard or perhaps only imagined a hint of mourning in those words, for beauty that must burn, even as they both knew he spoke truth. Theirs was not a beautiful dream but a desperate, blood-soaked one that would unleash a reality of ashes before anything could rise from the remains. This was a war that demanded monsters, be they monsters of fang and claw and hoof or monsters of the same terrible beauty as the city they ruled.

In destroying Astrae they would destroy civilisation. But the seraphim had seen to that long ago, had they not? For where was civilisation in pits of screaming slaves, tithing pain to the power of this beautiful, shining prison?

Astrae would fall, for Astrae must fall, for Astrae had long since fallen. All that remained was a magus's illusion of splendour and grace, laid over a ruin of corpses and brutality.

"The city is not enough. It may be destroyed — if we succeed, it will fall — but unless their magic is broken we do not stand a chance. We must burn the library."

And so, once more by Ellai's light, the light of assassins and secret lovers, they began to plan the ruin of the angels, their only hope of surviving long enough to redeem themselves from the course they now set.

******

One question remained stark in Bruxis's mind, one truth he could not ignore, no matter how their plans grew. For no matter how complex their strategy became, no matter how he trained the soldiers and watched the guards for weakness, no matter how he and Brimstone scouted the library on the rare occasions they were sent near it on duties other than bleeding under the lash, he could not change their numbers.

They were many, but the angels were more. They were many, but they were beaten and bloody and barely half-trained. They were many and they were furious and they were desperate, but they would die, and die, and even if they took the city, even if they turned magic to ash, they would never make it farther. They would be obliterated or enslaved once more by seraphim from across the empire. Or they would scatter and face a slow death by attrition, unable to rebuild even a single civilisation, much less the myriad tribes they had once been, from so few.

They were many, but they were not enough. They needed something else, something to tip the odds. And with that fact circling his thoughts, and the memory of a flame where flame should not exist flickering in his mind, he approached Brimstone.

"Can you kill with it?"

"No."

"Or teach me how, if you will not—"

Fury crossed Brimstone's face with such force that Bruxis stepped backwards before even realising he had moved. "Do you think I would not kill them all where they stand if I could, rather than feel the lash again? Rather than watch as they bring death after death to my care? Do you think I hold back out of reluctance, because I carry incense rather than weapons? Do you think I am _unwilling_?"

Brimstone had always seemed gentle; powerful and frightening perhaps, but never a soldier, never a creature of violence. Now, though, Bruxis saw the true strength of his rage, and the immense power of his self-possession that he controlled it, and endured, and held, somehow, to that presence of peace he carried with him.

And in the face of that rage unleashed, without even thinking until it was too late, Bruxis closed the distance he had opened between them and drew him into a rough embrace, hands closing tightly on Brimstone's scarred shoulders.

"No," Bruxis breathed, half in awe and entirely in truth. "No," he said again, stepping away once more. "I think you will save us all."  
   
******

_"I think you will save us all."_

The words rang louder in his mind as he made his way to his makeshift altar for his daily ritual of honouring the daily dead. 

_I think you will save us all._

It was not an order or a command, but a simple necessity. Bruxis had united them against all odds, and was training them in war, and would lead them in destruction, and Brimstone must find a way to save them. To preserve them, long enough for a dream to take hold. To see them safely through the slaughter, that they may find salvation amongst the wreckage.

In despair he looked around himself, at the three bodies that awaited him just today. _I could not even save you_. He bowed his head as he lit the incense that had given him his name, and let their souls wash over him, desperately holding himself back from wishing he could join them, as burning tears fell across his cheeks.

Grassy fields and open sky. Thunderous rain and waiting storms. Dappled forest and rustling trees. Wistfulness and memory and anger and confusion and loss, souls lingering and all amongst them, dreams. 

_I think you will save us all._

Incense and souls, smouldering flame and fading consciousness, pain and death and magic.

_You will save us all._

Brimstone stood, stumbling to his feet, rocked by the very notion that struck him sharper than any lash but brighter than any pain.

He half-ran to the slow, trickling stream at the wall of the pit where a Caprine family hurriedly scrubbed at dented metal plates and bowls. They looked up at him, startled perhaps by his expression or perhaps simply by his appearance and reputation, but handed him a canteen with a lid that screwed shut when he asked. One of the children nudged her sister, who winced before whispering back. So she was not too young for the pain pits. Would she join in the fighting? Would they send their children, too, to this war they could not win? Would they buy their freedom with the pain of their own future?

But even that thought paled against the impossible idea he held like lightning, waiting for it to destroy him yet unable to let it go. He made his way back to his altar in a daze of pain and gathering magic and barely contained hope.

He took hold of the stick of incense, taking great care not to smother it. He barely dared breathe, for fear of disturbing the air and dispelling the remnants of souls that clung to the funeral smoke. He opened his awareness to them, tried to call to them, to draw them close, as he carefully, oh so carefully, set the still-burning incense inside the open canteen.

And he waited, drawing all the magic he could around himself, trying to reach out with it to embrace those drifting souls, not knowing if it would make a difference but unwilling to try anything except everything.

He waited, until he felt them drift closer. Drift along the smoke. Drift to its source. 

He waited, until he could feel nothing in the air but their memory. 

Then he closed the canteen and waited until morning.

******  
   
Bruxis looked up, startled, as Brimstone laid a small, smooth stone beside where he sat tracing and retracing a map of Astrae in the dirt. It was rare for the death-priest to seek him, rather than the reverse. He held his silence, knowing Brimstone would break it when he was ready.

For a long while they simply sat together in a silence that could be mistaken for peaceful, but for the fact that Bruxis knew Brimstone saw the same thing he did as they looked out across the pit at their people: sacrifice and slaughter.

He reached for the stone to keep from reaching for Brimstone's hand. As he examined it, Brimstone spoke.

"It should be enough for a death."

"What is it?"

"I do not know how to kill, and I do not know how to teach you, but with this...it is a wish. Strong enough to will a death, perhaps. Several deaths, if I can make more."

"Only death?"

A strange expression crossed Brimstone's face, passing too quickly for Bruxis to read but tugging at something deep within him nonetheless, and he blinked away the sudden prickling in his eyes.

"No," Brimstone said, and Bruxis thought he must have imagined the faint tremor in his voice, for he went on brusquely, "any wish you like, within the limits of its power. Use it as you will."

Bruxis did reach for his hand, then, laying his own across Brimstone's with all the gentleness he could summon.

"Thank you," he said quietly. For another long silence, neither of them moved, the moment stretching out softly before snapping as Brimstone nodded.

"I will make more, if I can. If there is time. Enough perhaps for the magi who guard the library. The others can burn."

Bruxis nodded, turning the stone over and over in his hands, and numbers over and over in his mind as he looked out again across the shuffling, bleeding hopes of his people.

"That for death," Brimstone said, and Bruxis turned abruptly at the strange note in Brimstone's voice, something almost like excitement. "But for life..." and he held out a tarnished metal canteen. 

Bruxis took it in one hand, the wish-stone held in the other, and looked at Brimstone quizzically, not daring yet to hope. 

"A wish, and...what?" he asked.

"Souls."

Bruxis simply stared at him for a long moment before his eyes widened in astonishment as comprehension dawned. Looking into Brimstone's eyes, he knew he was right. Life in one hand, death in the other. And between them, a chance of salvation. A hope of redemption.

He lay the stone and the souls down carefully, and reached a hand almost reverently to Brimstone's face, his fingers trailing down Brimstone's cheek, gentle as tears, before coming to rest on his broad shoulder. 

_"Thank you,_ " he breathed.

Brimstone looked away, as if suddenly unable to hold Bruxis's gaze. Bruxis let his hand drop, picked up the canteen once more, weighed the stone in his palm. Life and death.

"I cannot promise," Brimstone said after a moment, voice rough. "But it is the best I can do."

"It is enough," Bruxis said. "It will be enough." And he held the stone in his hand, and made a wish.

******  
   
"It is time." Brimstone was at his altar, gleaning the day's souls when Bruxis came to him with the words they had both been awaiting.

"They are ready to fight?"

“As ready as they will ever be. They are united, and they will not be held long, now that they are awoken. It is time. We can lead them. We can—”  
   
“No. _You_ can lead them. I must not.”  
   
“You need not lead them in battle, but they will need leaders in the…aftermath. I can teach them to fight, but they look to you. They will need—”  
   
“No. If this works, I will have power over their very lives. The fate of their souls. Their rebirth. I will be the one who brings them back, that they may fight and die again. I cannot be the one to command them to those deaths. That is too much power, and they will resent me for it. You must rule them in life, that I may preside over their death and rebirth. You must give the commands.”  
   
“You cannot expect them to ignore your role in this, Brimstone. They will know you. They will see you at my side, because _that_ I refuse to relinquish. If we fight for a future, we fight for one where we can _live_.”  
   
“And we will, to the extent that we are able. I will not leave you. They will see me, but I will be their sorcerer, their resurrectionist. They will love me or fear me, but they will be free to do either so long as _I do not command them_.”  
   
“You would have them hate me instead,” Bruxis said softly, but it was the softness of understanding and not bitterness. Theirs would be a bitter life.  
   
“They could not hate you,” Brimstone said, lifting a hand to Bruxis’s cheek, brushing scarred knuckles against the soft fur. “I will give them a future but you…you will give them hope. I will give them endlessness, but you will bring them _purpose_. I would have them love you, as they can never love me.”  
   
"So long as they can love," Bruxis finally said, lowering his great antlered head in acknowledgement or resignation.

"Then let us go." Brimstone touched the array of canisters and canteens and flasks and even a few pots with lids that might fit tightly enough to protect a soul. He saw Bruxis's gaze follow the motion, saw the pleading hope flash in his eyes. 

He had raised one of the dead, a Dashnag girl who had been dead only moments. He could not have led them to slaughter without knowing it was possible. But tonight there would be no immediate resurrection, no way to return souls to their bodies before the bodies were lost. And he dared not experiment further here, not even watched by guards and magi who believed them no more than dumb beasts. For if he showed them their error now...

"Let us go," he said again, trying to banish his doubts. 

“Are you certain? If you are wrong…”  
   
Bruxis trailed off, even his blunt acceptance of reality failing in the face of the words to contain this truth. But Brimstone understood; the question had been circling in his mind with every breath of incense, every brush of a dying soul, every glimmer of daring hope.  
   
He would doom his people if he was wrong. And damn them if he was right. Life enslaved as a vessel for magic, or life unending as a soul chained to vessel after vessel of violence. Pain tithed to power or blood tithed to war; either would mean annihilation.  
   
“No,” he said, unable in this moment to lie, with those eyes on him and the determined desperation in that voice. “No, I am not certain. All I am certain of is that we are lost if we do not try.”  
   
“And perhaps lost even if we do,” Bruxis said. 

The words hung in the silence between them like incense and yearning unspoken.  
   
“But perhaps someday those who come after us will not be,” Brimstone finished softly. 

 "And for that, we ask them to die."

"No," Brimstone said softly. "For that, we ask them to give their lives."

******

Ellai rose, bathing the world in a gentle light that brought only death, this night.

Bruxis held the centre in a whirl of beauty and brutality, fighting for deliverance even if it meant damnation.

Bruxis held the centre amidst the flaming wings of angels, and from the shadows, Brimstone lit his own flame. A spark, little more. A spark that kindled flame that kindled screams. Screams that kindled power that he reaped with loathing and despair, and turned to flame once more.

Screams and blood and smoke, flames burning ever brighter as night unleashed monsters, and Brimstone watched from the shadows as a world was destroyed and wondered if they had been foolish to ever dream that it could be remade.

But amidst the flames and monsters, souls drifted like a promise, and as the sun rose across a past in ruin, he walked amongst the ashes and gleaned their chance for a future.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for giving me a reason to write in this fandom! These two always intrigued me as well, and it was fun (fun? Maybe not the right word for a past made of pain but we'll just go with it) to explore their origins. 
> 
> I took the liberty of naming the Warlord; it seemed perhaps appropriate that Brimstone would name his most powerful but most painful wish after the one who helped bring salvation to their people through war.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!


End file.
